Flashback Books

As a child, there were a few books that were my favorite.

One was The Five Chinese Brothers. The concept was cool that five identical brothers each had separate abilities.

Other favorites were the books of Virginia Lee Burton: Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel; Katy and the Big Snow; and The Little House.

There were books on drawing stick figure style vehicles and such.

And then until recently there were two mysterious books whose names I could not remember.

A year or so ago, Mom found one of them for me. All I could remember was a tale of koalas who were left homeless and foodless due to a swarm of locusts eating all the eucalyptus leaves and then being taken to a new location by kangaroos. Mom talked with teachers and discovered the book was called Bear Circus. As soon as I saw the cover, I knew it was right.

Then last week, I did a little search again for the final book. Again I could only remember scenes and lines. It was about a town that got swarmed with wasps. It was where I learned that the word "pate" meant the top of a bald man's head. And I thought that the town had saved itself by making a giant stack of pancakes and getting the wasps caught in the syrup.

With a little research for wasps and children's books, I discovered that my problem for years had been misremembering the method of capturing the wasps. The book is The Giant Jam Sandwich.

I got it at the library on Friday, and read it to Jennifer that night. I was amazed at how much of it came back to me while I read.